See Me
by FebruaryNight
Summary: Paint.When people see it they see me, they’re looking into my soul. Maybe I don’t want them to see me. A fanfiction about Understanding complete
1. Chapter 1

I don't know how I'll deal with this new…thing…this feeling. I try to put it down, on canvas, so I'll know what it is. What it looks like. Painting. It's my escape, my everything. When people see it they see me, they're looking into my soul. Maybe I don't want them to see me. It's my release, my salvation. It keeps me sane

She dips her brush into the plain black paint. It isn't onyx black or midnight black. It could be, but it isn't. it's just plain black. Touching brush to canvas she traces the concealing lines. She can feel the curves with her mind making the flat canvas curve too. She's in another world when she paints. One were everything is okay. Where she doesn't have to sort out these feelings but she does anyway. Let her splash them on the white. Let her see them. Let her see herself. Make her see herself. She reaches for another color when a bang comes from the door. Her world is shattered, the harsh light of reality burning her senses. She lifts herself up, turns her back on the painting opens the door. And there he is. She doesn't want to face him. You can't make her do anything she doesn't want to do. Unless you are him.

"Hey" he is just as unsure as she is

"Hi" she whispers back more formal. More impersonal.

"Star dragged everyone out. I made dinner. Hungry?" It's never 'Starfire' always 'Star' it's never 'Rae' always 'Raven' he's more comfortable with her. He can relax with her. He is content with her. But is he happy? Light is easier than Dark but is it more rich? Is it deeper?

"no" he frowns. She isn't hungry. She'll never talk to him. Never let him see her. Never let him get close enough to know her, understand her.

"will you come anyway? Please?"

"yes." His frown curves up in a smirk. YES is so unravenish.

**Purple is the worst color. It isn't happy like pink, orange and yellow. It's not angry like red, not sad like blue. It isn't fresh like white or dark like black. Purple is the most complex color.**

He pushes his pickle away, save the best for last. He takes a large chop of his homemade sub. She is intent on watching him for forever. She chews the ring of chocolate residue left over from her hot coco, biting at the inside of her mug,

Snow falls in wet clumps. Covering her world in white, like a canvas, a new beginning. She's staring at him. Memorizing the way his nose curves, where his lips soften. He looks up and she is watching the snow again. She doesn't like to talk, she doesn't like to stand out, she does need someone to understand, without her telling them. She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her head atop them. She sees his worry at her reclusive nature between his eyebrows. She watches his nervousness quiver on his lips. His determines in his chin. His stubbornness in the way his neck arches. She sees his fear in his mask. She didn't want to see his…l…o…v…e…in his protecting arms. She closed her eyes not wanting to see who the love was for.

She doesn't want him to see anything in her face so she wears her own mask. She cries behind her mask. Small oceans were formed thought her tears. But her eyes are closed her mask tied on. She has nothing to be afraid of, no one notices as much as she does.

"What do you do in your room all day?"

She shifts her position but her eyes never leave the tumbling snow. "Paint." She is so concentrated on memorizing the way the snow falls, she doesn't realize she just slipped.

"What do you paint?" surprise is evident in his voice. Her head snaps away from the window

"Who said I paint?" her voice is unsteady. He's watching her. He knows she hadn't meant to say that. It slides

"I said 'What do you do?'" she relaxes

"Nothing." He frowns at her untrusting nature. He will push it.

"Do you trust me Raven?" Her oddly colored orbs shift.

_No._ but she says, "Do you trust me?"

She looks lost. Pale fragile and he wonders why he never saw it before. _Paint_. What would she paint, how didn't he know? She's watching the snow again.

He places his plate in the sink slowly so it doesn't clatter. Walking over to her he smiles. _Paint._

"Lets go outside."

She looks at him a moment. Then nods. He grabs her arm to pull her out the door and she is smiling behind her mask. His eagerness is contagious. He pulls her out the door grabbing a weirdly shaped bag with his other hand. It's purple.

He's dropped the bag and it sinks into the snow leaving a crude imprint of its presence. He brought her to the edge of the island. Were the water should be lapping at the shore. It's not. It's frozen. He sits down in the snow next to his purple bag pulling her with him. He picks the bag up and places it on his lap.

"Do you know how to skate?"

He knows so little about her. He wants to know. He tries to know. He hopes she knows that he wants too. She's looking at him now intently. She says she is brave and the others believe that she is. He knows better, she is very afraid of the world, even if she isn't aware that she is. He knows how she works which way she ticks. She'll sit silent and you will never notice her but she will notice you. She will be listening to your every word hanging watching them dangle and fall from your lips. She will know how you will react to everything and anything and she will be ready. Yet she doesn't risk putting herself out there. Even though she knows exactly how you will react she's not sure how she will react. So she simply doesn't, problem solved.

**Ice. Its frigid glassy blueness is hard almost impenetrable. You think you can see beneath its translucent surface but find it only to be layers of hiding masks. Melted it is water and with out water you couldn't live. I couldn't live.**

Robin slipped out onto the ice. He doesn't have a clue as how to ice skate. It was an impulse thing he had found the skates in the garage. Raven watched him as he stumbled and skidded until he was on hands and knees. Just smiling at her. Smiling. The cold air caught her warm breath as she gasped at smile. His smile for her. She lost timid who usually peeked out of her violet eyes when robin was around, bravery striding forward. Finishing the tie on her skate she glided towards her fallen hero. Whose eyes widened beneath his mask, she turned in his face grinding icy shavings with her skates and letting them spray in an arch hitting his warm flesh. He knew that was a challenge. And she knew a challenge was a sure way to get to Robin.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: this story requires you to read between the lines, catch the subtext and I will be so happy someone understood it besides myself. The first chapter of this story got 134 hits and 4 reviews do keep that in mind.

**Life is tough there isn't anyway around it. You can't expect it to be easy. Nothing worth while ever is. Life can be _easier_ if you don't go at it alone**

Robin pushed himself to his skate clad feet, wobbling on the thinness of the blade and the slickness of the ice. His trained eyes followed Raven as she glided backwards away from him. A small smile ever present on her face, Raven and smile weren't often used in the same sentence or thought for that matter. Making sure to freeze the moment in his mind he darted forwards only to wage war with gravity. He lifted his feet trying to walk forward on the ice.

This should not be happening, he always won. Deciding he wasn't going to break his winning record now he skidded forward. Realizing at last it was far more efficient to slide forward on the ice than gouge his way into it.

He picked up speed gaining on her as she watched him intently.

"Learning how to stop is a good place to start." She said it so softly he would have missed it had he not been a foot in front of her and still skating at break-neck speed. His eyes widened beneath his mask and his heart thumped loudly inside his chest. Raven simply stroked in a fluid movement, gaining speed she pushed off back and forth from the inside edge of one skate to the inside edge of the other. Now a yard a head of the out-of-control bird she turned to face him. He was foolish enough to keep his pace letting the chase continue.

Sticking her tongue out at him and his pride, she preformed an easy forward crossover. A method she had perfected. Crossing one foot over the other it's used to pick up speed while turning corners, something she knew Robin couldn't do.

**Water dripped from the cleaned brush, soon to be soiled with color again. Its brown bristles lost beneath blue paint. She then plunged it into the water again letting the blue become lighter. Sliding it across her canvas she traced shadows. She placed the brush down and stepped away, that was him but where was she?**

He growled in frustration as she turned corners losing no speed while he had to slow or be tossed by his own momentum across the ice.

"Where did you learn to skate?" he muttered under his frozen breath. She slowed turning in a circle so she faced him again.

"What?"

"I said," he drew out 'said' extremely annoyed at losing to her, "Where did you learn to skate?"

Her eyes narrowed, trying to concentrate on his question and finding his smile clogging up her brain. "I took lessons," not exactly the whole truth but what was it to her.

She answered him, he hadn't expected that. "Can I take lessons?"

"I didn't take them here…" her voice trailed off.

She skated away from him, perhaps if she distanced herself he wouldn't ask anymore, not that she would answer.

"Teach me?"

Now that caught her off guard. She looked him up and down for something to say he was joking. She found nothing. Glancing at the snow falling around them she immediately recognized this scene from one of the few romance novels she owned. She now looked anywhere but him. Opening up could mean pain. She didn't know how much more pain her mind could take. If he didn't know her, didn't see her, she wouldn't have to worry. Everything would be okay. He was looking at her now, waiting for an answer. His tight green pants looked ridiculous with ice-skates but if you backed away far enough he really did look like a professional skater. Not that it mattered. He didn't matter, he doesn't matter. He's just her leader, he's just there. She trusted him on some primal level, one that let her trust go only as far as battle schematics and training. Beyond leader he was nothing, IS nothing, nothing to her. Why was she doing this to herself? Skating around with him, alone.

"O..kay" She didn't say that, she couldn't have. Her mind must be frozen like the bay, that was it, frozen mind. It even explained why his smile was there in her head; her mind must have frozen while it just happened to be in there. Nothing was wrong, just too cold.

**The brush fell into purple, sliding it along the blue, pressing hard then letting up creating different shades. She had once told herself she would always be okay; from now on she would refrain from telling lies to herself. Okay was an okay word, it didn't really mean anything significant. She wasn't okay she was significant, okay was just a bad word. But what makes her significant? Her brush played with the paint moving it around on her once white canvas. Sometimes new beginnings couldn't always come and you had to overwrite the past. **

Robin could stop now. He made good progress, he was after all the Boy Wonder or Boy Blunder either one, thought the second was more preferred to Raven.

"Maybe all the Titan's should learn to skate; this could come in handy in cold situations."

She just glanced at him, her body language clearly stating this was a one time thing.

"Can you do a trick for me?"

Her stony stare turned to one of annoyance. "Do I get a biscuit?"

"Why yes you do."

She skated once around in a large circle picking up speed, she glided past him lifting her non-skating leg into the air behind her, showing off her flexibility and strength. Placing her leg back on the ice she pushed off it hard, skating a meter or so doing some quick backwards crossovers. She then did a 3-turn so that she was skating on a LBI edge. At this point, Raven executed a strong "check" for stability, with her right arm extended behind and her left arm extended forward. Her right leg was held in the air, behind and to the right of her body. She swung her free leg and arm forward, initiating a spinning action, and leaped into the air. Landing the jump she skated towards him arms crossed.

"Where is my biscuit?"

He looked at her as though not really seeing her at all and dumbly replied "In the tower." She gave a quick smirk seeing his stupefied look than one of horror realizing she just had let him in. If only for a second.

Catching both her facial expressions he skated towards her.

Standing in front of her he placed his hands on her shoulders.

"It wasn't that bad was it?" His breath rose from his lips into the freezing air reminding her of dragon smoke.

"What?" Her voice trembled, rising and falling in pitch.

"Letting me in."

**She lifted the picture from her paint splattered else, setting it to dry in a corner of the room while she contemplated him. Should she be doing this, what if something went wrong what if he didn't like what he saw? She might have to go back to 'Okay.'**

She skated to the edge of the island stumbling all the way. She had numbly plopped down to remove her skates, the cold air stung her eyes and she could feel her lips were starting to peel. Everything was okay, she would always be okay. Always be okay. Okay.

He had skated behind her watching her stumble over her own thoughts and soon the ice. He'd catch her if she fell, didn't she know that?

Placing himself beside her he untied his skates to, finished he watched her red fingers stumble over her ties. He slid his gloved hand to them, she was messed up, and he knew it. He shouldn't have touched her, shouldn't have said what he did. One skate off he looked at her sock, blue with a small silver batman insignia she had thought no one would see. Batman was her favorite, because he didn't have powers, like Robin.

"Still want your biscuit?"

She gave him a reproachful look.

"You did do a trick."

She nodded, slowly slipping back into her quiet self.

They walked back to the tower together, shivering their way through the snow.

**Robin opened his door and was about to step out when he saw something at his feet wrapped up in paper bags. He knew it could only be from a fellow Titan. He slid a letter from under the white string holding the bags together.**

_It wasn't that bad_

**He read it again… "It wasn't that bad" hmm. **

**His memory shifted to two days ago. His confusion left replaced by a small smile. Not one of his overly gloating ones, one just like he had given two days ago. The one for Rae. He brought the package inside and laid it on his bed. Slowly he pulled the bags away from her gift, unwrapping a mystery, unwrapping her.**

**He lost control of his eyes to the painting.**

**His mask lie on blue ice, painted so magnificently that it was very possible he could reach out and lift the mask away from the picture. Snow piled atop it, hiding a corner of the mask and reflecting in the ice, which also held the reflection of a cloudy gray sky. His eyes traveled to the snow next, falling gently upon everything, seemingly so soft, his hands caressed the painting. His eyes next took in the purple rose, frost collecting along the edges of its petals. She had made it clear that this rose had just bloomed, its outer petals open and inner petals still slightly closed, positioned in such a way that only the mask could see what was really inside. **

**It was at that moment that he Saw Her.**


End file.
